The telephone rang insistently until I picked up the receiver and said "Hello?"
"Hey Dewi. Get your backside onto a plane, we are off to Botswana." Said J.
"But we don't have the Kombi." I replied…"It's still kaput after we hit that donkey roadblock on the way to Nata last year. How are we going to get there?" I enquired a little apprehensively.
"A Boer mak'n plan." Said J. Excitement in his voice. "Just get yourself on a flight here and we will soon figure something out. I'm thinking Zim, Zam & Nam as well while we are at it."
So I called my travel agent………"I've retired." He said. "But I'll pass your details onto a friend of mine who is in the business and she will sort you out, don't you worry."
So, off I flew, arriving in Pretoria with no real idea of where we were going.
"Let's have a braai and sort this out." Chirped J.
"Good plan. I like it so far." I answered, popping off a lid from an ice-cold beer.
Two days later we were packed and ready for the off. We would be leaving early the following morning. As I packed the last of our supplies into the Hi-lux we'd hired for the trip, I realised that we had not bought any lip-ice to fend off cracked lips in the dry heat.
"No problem." said A. I have two spare for you both to use.
So off we went, leaving early and heading North for the border post at Groblersbrug/Martin's Drift. We were not looking forward to going through the border as it had taken an age to go through all the formalities last year, so it was a surprise to get through immigration, customs and vehicle checks all within fifteen minutes of our arrival there. The only untoward thing that happened were the strange looks we got from officials and fellow travellers alike.
We hopped back into the Hi-lux and I took one look at J and burst out laughing. He in turn, looked at me and also burst into fits of laughter.
Turns out that A had given us a couple of tubes of the kid's lip-ice. Both of which were bright pink in colour! No wonder we had such funny looking stares as we went through border control!
Once we stopped laughing and the jokes were exhausted, we both realised that despite the embarrassment, it sure meant that we were dealt with quickly and efficiently.
Before long, we were sitting in camp, enjoying a beer with our neighbours and relaxing in true wilderness with no fences.
A roaring fire and the sounds of the bush simply cannot be beaten.
